Repository:
University of the Pacific. Library. Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections

Stockton, CA 95211

Shelf location: For current information on the location of these
materials, please consult the library's online catalog.

Language:
English.

Administrative Information

Access

Collection is open for research.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], George Chase, Alameda County (Calif.) Papers, Mss134,
Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library

Biography

George Chase, was Deputy Treasurer of Alameda County. He was born in Newburyport, Mass.
(1841), a son of Moses and Emily (Stickney) Chase. The Chase family subsequently settled
in Brooklyn (Clinton), Calif., now part of Oakland. The father of George Chase came to
California in 1849. There, he supported himself on West Oakland Point by hunting. He
joined in partnership with the Patten brothers and obtained land in Clinton which they
subdivided into building lots. They built the first hotel in East Oakland, called the
Clinton House. Moses Chase returned East in 1853 to visit family and in his absence the
Clinton House burned. He returned to California the same year. Son George came to
California (1854) in company with his aunt Mary and her husband, James Allen. George's
mother, Emily (Stickney) Chase, had died when George was a baby.

Upon his arrival (1856) George Chase worked as an assistant to the toll-collector on
Oakland's Twelfth Street Bridge. Meanwhile, he attended preparatory school at Durant
College. Later, Chase worked with his father on a sloop the latter used in freighting
goods to San Francisco. At eighteen, George learned the trade of carriage-painter with A.
H. Cochran and was in business with Cochran for a year (1860). He then went to work for
Bangle Brothers, carriage-painters, and, from 1865, was a house painter for them. In 1867
he and his old partner, A.H. Cochran, formed the firm of Cochran & Chase. Chase traveled
East via Panama (1868-1869) visiting his three Stickney aunts in Newburyport, going also
to Portland, to Hallowell, Me., and to Boston. He returned to California after five
months and began a new contracting/painting partnership with the Bangle brothers. The
firm continued in business until George Chase had an injury to his ankle (1878). He then
became a copyist under P.R. Borein, County Recorder (1878-1881) and was later appointed
Deputy Treasurer of Alameda County (1881 to at least 1892). He was married in Clinton
(1869) to Miss Mandana E. Boynton (Danie of his letters), who was born in Hallowell,
Maine, about 1843. They had three children: Mary Emily (b. 1870), George Moses (b. 1873),
and Albert Boynton (b. 1879).

Scope and Content

The collection consists of typescript copies of originals. It contains the 1883-84 diary
of Mellie Chase, twelve year old daughter of George Chase; the 1867 and 1868 diaries of
George Chase, and, correspondence from his mother's family, the Stickneys, of
Newburyport, Mass. The collection also contains correspondence between George's cousin
Millie and his Aunt Fanny Stickney, copies of 19th c. Alameda County land documents, an
extract from Jacob Stickney's will and a speech by George Chase to his old Civil War
Company. There is a collection of Chase family papers at the University of California,
Berkeley.